A tool, such as a mold, die, or other object formation apparatus is used to repeatedly form or create substantially similar objects or products. Conventionally, the tool is formed by machining or “working” a block of material in a certain manner, thereby forming or creating the tool in a desired shape and geometrical configuration. Alternatively, the tool may be formed by a laminar process in which various sectional members are created and selectively coupled (e.g., by gluing, bolting, welding, or bonding), effective to allow the coupled members to cooperatively form the tool. Particularly, holes are formed within the tool and a slotted pin may be placed within each of the formed holes. Steam is blown through the holes, through the contained pins to create the part and water is then forced through the tool to cool the part. The holes are used both to melt the material which is used to form the part and to cool the part.
The holes and slotted pins are cooperatively effective to allow air, steam, and/or water to pass through the tool in order to or heat or melt material, such as styrene, and to cool the tool and/or the produced item which may reside within the tool (e.g., the heat travels from the item to the ambient environment through a medium which may be contained within and/or which may selectively travel through the pins), effective to increase the useful operating life of the tool and to increase the likelihood of producing an item having a desired shape and attributes.
While the foregoing approach does allow for the creation of cooling passages, it represents a relatively inefficient and costly process which undesirably increases the overall cost of production and may undesirably damage the formed tool. Such damage is particularly undesirable since many of these tools are relatively expensive.
There is therefore a need for a method to selectively create heating or cooling passages within a tool which overcomes some or all of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior techniques. Moreover, there is a further need to create a tool by the use of a method which allows cooling and heating passages to be efficiently formed within the tool and which does not potentially cause structural damage to the formed tool. These and other needs are addressed by the present invention, as is more fully delineated below.